论文总字数：25499字

摘 要

由于有不同文化背景，不同的民族对同一句话有着不同的理解。并且因为这个原因，在交际活动中，许多人未能理解双方话语的真正意思。因此，研究中西方在某些领域中的文化差异是相当有必要的。鉴于语言是跨文化交际中最主要的手段，作为语言中的一部分, 习语是一个民族文化和智慧的核心，是某一语言使用过程中形成的独特而固定的表达方式。英汉习语作为两种不同的语言精髓，在语言交流中发挥重要作用。因此，从文化差异角度来探究英汉习语是非常有必要的。本论文主要探讨这两种语言在自然地理环境、风俗习惯、宗教信仰，历史典故,思维模式五方面的文化差异，并呈现翻译英汉习语的几种技巧。

关键词：英汉习语；文化；文化差异；翻译方法

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The significance of idioms 2

4. The factors contributing to the cultural differences between English and Chinese idioms 2

4.1 The factors 2

4.2 The corresponding relationship between English and Chinese idioms 7

5. Some specific strategies used in idiom translation 8

5.1 Literal translation 8

5.2 Liberal translation 9

5.3 Literal plus liberal translation 10

6. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Language is an inseparable part of culture. And as a mirror of culture, language is loaded with abundant with culture; while as an important part of the language and culture of a society. Idioms are a set of unique and fixed expressions, which includes colloquialisms, proverbs, and slangs and so on. Different countries have different origins of cultures, which exerts a great influence on formation of different idioms. Consequently, idioms’ translation largely reflects a country’s culture. Many idioms are vivid, which carry strong local color and national features. Being explicit or implicit, some of them can trigger a variety of associations; some may contain more than one meaning, which means that the real meaning of an idiom must be dug out from the perspective of cultural differences. Translation plays an important role in cultural communication. However, with the development of translation research, people don’t consider translation merely as a switching of language symbols any longer, but as a means of cross-cultural communication. Moreover, because the differences exist in natural geographical environment, social customs, religious beliefs, historical allusions, and different modes of thinking, it’s unavoidable that we are bound to face some difficulties in translation of English and Chinese idioms. That is to say that we must not only pay attention to the factors that lead to some problems in translation of English and Chinese idioms but also master several skills for idioms’ translation.

1. Literature Review

Idioms are a part of cultural treasure in human civilization. They are characterized by simple language，profound meaning，dramatic image, manifold rhetorical device. However, it’s hard to achieve a good translation of idioms because of different cultural backgrounds, such as diverse natural geographical environments, various social customs, diverse religious beliefs, diverse historical allusions, and different modes of thinking. All these different cultural backgrounds have undoubtedly made it difficult for translators to get a right comprehension. Today, in terms of reflection of cultural difference, the translation of English and Chinese Idioms is far from being satisfactory now；and it is still at a lower level. Although many scholars have made numerous studies in this field，which only focus on idioms’ certain aspects, such as origin, lexical structure, semantic characteristics , and the syntactic function ,they still haven’t do a thorough and systematic study of the factors of culture；and they also haven’t appropriately used translation skills from the perspective of cultural difference. Under these circumstances, translators should pay more attention to English and Chinese idioms translation. The thesis plans to translate English and Chinese idioms from the perspective of different cultures, and it supplies certain implications to the translation of the English and Chinese idioms.

3. The significance of idioms

Being an essential part of the language and culture of a society, idioms play an important role in interpreting the meanings of culture in different countries. At the same time, because English and Chinese idioms are closely linked to cultures and traditions, so they convey different cultural features and national characteristics. Generally speaking, idioms are expressions which are difficult to understand from the literal meanings of individual constituents. Idioms have two distinguishing features that respectively are semantic unity and structural stability. In its broad sense, idioms include metaphorical phrases, slang, colloquialism, proverbs, sayings, set phrases, two part allegorical sayings, and allusions and so forth. All these mean that it’s difficult to translate English and Chinese idioms well .What’s more, with the development of society, people take part in more intercultural communication than before, which makes the translation of English and Chinese idioms become more difficult and complicated to understand. With the result that it’s better to translate the idioms from the Perspective of cultural differences.

4. The factors contributing to the cultural differences of English and Chinese idioms

4.1 The factors

(1) Natural geographical environment

Natural geographical environment greatly influences the process of forming culture. In other words, natural geographic environment is the foundation of humans’ existence and development, so different nations’ cultural formation and development are greatly influenced by different geographic environments.

Natural geographical environment plays an important role in shaping one country’s culture; what’s more human beings have no choices and capacities to change the geography. Consequently, idioms based on geographical features appear different and have their own special meanings. Such as, Chinese people are accustomed to using “the east wind” to symbolize “the spring wind” while Western people “the west wind”. Just from this, we can see obvious regional difference in expressing idioms.
Being an island country, Britain has its special customs. British People live along seacoast and whose livelihood almost completely relies on the sea. Thus, their idioms are all about water, sailing, island and fish. However, China belongs to inland place where people usually live with earth. And most people’s activities are connected with agriculture, with the result that lots of Chinese idioms are connected with agriculture. For example, to show somebody being extravagant, there is a Chinese idiom ‘挥金如土’, while English idiom is ‘spend money like water. From this we can see that water in English and earths in Chinese has different influence on these two languages. There are other such English idioms, such as "sail under false colors"( 欺世盗名 )，"half sea over"( 酒喝得太多 ), "fish begins to stink at the head" ( 上梁不正下梁歪 )and so on., And Chinese idioms like 二人同心，黄土变金 (When two people are of the same mind, even clay may be changed into gold) , 种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆 ( as a man sows, so shall he reap ).

All in all, the geographical difference leads to different idioms in the two languages. Take the other instance, in southern China ,with mild and moisture weather, people are familiar with bamboo, so they choose the idiom ‘雨后春笋’ to stand for the new things cropping up in great numbers. Correspondingly, English have the idiom ‘spring up like mushrooms’ to tell the same meaning. An another example, to describe an nondescript thing, using “neither fish or fowl“ in English while ‘非驴非马’ in Chinese .

(2) Social customs

Social custom is an ubiquitous social phenomenon, which are created by the social groups through living together for a long time (骆世平，2006).Since one was born , his feeling , behavior , experience and thinking are progressively formed by the Social customs. Thus, the differences of social customs of the two nations decide different thinking modes .For instance, concerning the issue of raising dogs. Most of idioms about dog in Chinese contain derogatory sense. For example: ‘狼心狗肺’ ‘狗嘴吐不出象牙’ ‘狐朋狗友’ ‘狗拿耗子，多管闲事’走狗’’他在上司面前就像一条狗’and so on . Although in recent years, more and more people take dogs as pets, and it seems that he dog’s status begins to change, the derogatory meaning of dog has been deeply rooted in the culture of Chinese language. However, in western country, dog has been seen a friend of people and member of a family. In English language, many canine idioms contain dual sense. On the one hand, many English contain commendatory meanings, for instance: You are a lucky dog. [你是一个幸运儿]　Every dog has his day. [人人都有得意日]  Dog do not eat dog. [同室不倒戈] Work like a dog——[拼命工作] A good dog deserves a good born [劳而有获] and so on. On the other hand, it also means hostility and sneer. Like the following: You are going to the dogs你就要像狗一样完蛋了,［It means somebody will degenerate or go to the bad.］ This is a dog’s life.这简直不是人过的日子,[It means the very poor life.] Apart from the view of dogs , cat in China seems to have the dissimilar status like dog in west. Such as, a cat has nine lives. [吉人自有天相]While in west, cats are often used to describe vicious women, Like cats hide their claws.[知人知面不知心]. Another example, the dragon, as a symbol of the Chinese people, always stands for auspice ,such as 真龙天子，望子成龙，龙腾虎跃，生龙活虎，龙飞凤舞，龙凤呈祥 and the like. But in Western mythologies, the dragon means a monster, a devil and cruelty, which is connected with evil and terror. In English speaking countries "If you call a woman a dragon, you mean that she is fierce and unpleasant." (Collins, p. 501)

(3) Religious beliefs

The word“religion” comes from the Latin word“religare”:the prefix of re means stress while the meaning of ligare is“to bind”.The whole meaning of the Latin word “religare”is“bind tightly” (Funk,1978:278) The word appropriately explains the meaning of religion : bind disciples together by certain religious doctrine, canon and moral idea.(胡文仲 ，2000).

Since religious belief is an important part of culture, which exerts influence on all aspects of people’s spiritual and social life. And due to every country has its own religious belief, which forms different values. Consequently, some differences of idioms between Chinese and English can be dated back to the origin of religion. From ancient to modern times, Buddhism is a major religion in China’s history, while English people usually tend to take the Bible as one of the most important religion.

Chinese culture dated from Confucian School. So many traces of Confucian principles can be found in Buddhist doctrines. Despite that Buddhist culture originated from the other country, over a thousand years of time ,it has been assimilated into Chinese culture. And then it has been a part of Chinese culture and also exerted enormous influence not only on Chinese traditional culture but also on present life. In language, a large number of Chinese idioms can be dated back to Buddhist School. For example,[借花献佛]——offer a present to a guest with other people’s things.[道高一尺，魔高一丈]——While the priest climbs a post, the devil climbs ten .[苦中作乐]——find joy amid hardship etc.

  Different from China, innumerable western idioms have close relationship with the Bible, such as the idiom referring to the complete failure of something, ‘to fall to the ground ’, the idiom describing one person having extraordinary wisdom , ‘as wise as Solomon’, another idiom denoting revenge in the same way, ‘forbidden fruit is sweetest’ and etc.
(4) Historical allusions

Different countries own different history culture, which mainly includes allusion, myths, poems, ancient books and records, etc. Among them, the most important is allusion; it reflects the national characteristic. Historical allusion brings about lots of idioms. The simple but profound idioms are not easy to translate. The difficulties of translating idioms lie in the following facts, first, there are divergences in form and meaning; second, because the existence of cultural gap ,the words in an idiom usually bear the secondary meaning of an idiom which is likely the most difficult to be expressed in the receptor language. As a result, we cannot translate and understand these idioms from the literal meaning.

The English and Chinese people have different historical backgrounds, thus, they have different legends and anecdotes which also have provided rich and varied materials for their idioms, with the result that they give a national color to the idioms in the two languages. In order to better understand the meaning of idioms, we need to learn and understand the English allusion as well as the Chinese allusion. The majority of English idioms about allusions are from The Bible and Roman myths , for instance: ‘a cat’s paw’ means ‘为他人利用的人’.This idiom comes from The Fables of Aesop《伊索寓言》. For example:“Penelope’s web”（永远完不成的工作）“a Pandora’s box.” （潘多拉之盒棗灾难、麻烦、祸害的根源）and “to meet one’s waterloo”(惨遭失败) .While Chinese people clearly know many Chinese idioms, which come from their own historical events . For example,风声鹤唳 , 草木皆兵 (be in an extremely nervous state in which one is scared by the slightest sound) origin from the defeat of Fu Jian’s ( 苻坚 ) army at Feishui River during the East Jin Dynasty; 卧薪尝胆 (to sleep on brushwood and taste gall---to undergo self-imposed hardships so as to strengthen one"s resolve to wipe out a national humiliation) comes from The Historical Records • Yue’ s State Emperor Gou Jian’ s Noble Family( 《史记·越王勾践世家》 ) and so on..

(5)Different modes of thinking

Thinking decides one’s view on things. In the aspect of modes of thinking, Western people are prone to dissect things into different parts and then analyze their relationships. On the contrary, Chinese people are likely to synthesize parts and then examine the whole. Unavoidably, language reflects the mode of thinking of certain people. As for the core value, Western culture pays attention to developing individual potentialities, realizing individual objectives, and seeking individual interests ,such as “the architect of his own，paddle your own canoe，mind your own business ,Charity begins at home，but should not end there.（仁爱始于家，其次才是别人）; while Chinese culture puts emphasis on harmonizing community relationships, actualizing community objectives, and safeguarding community interests, for example“大公无私、众人拾柴火焰高、孤掌难鸣,舍小家，为大家”. Aimed at some given words , the English and Chinese refer them as different meanings. The English words like “individualism”, “ambition” and “idealism” are commendatory terms, while the Chinese ones like“个人主义”，“野心” “理想主义”a derogatory terms.

4.2 The corresponding relationship between English and Chinese idioms

(1)Full-corresponding

Idioms of full-corresponding refer to those that correspond to each other in meanings, images, structures and usages. Thus, it can be translated word by word. For example:

1. As light as feather (轻如鸿毛)
2. Barking dogs do not bite(吠犬不咬人)
3. Walls have ears （隔墙有耳）
4. Castles in the air（空中楼阁）
5. The last dinner （最后的晚餐）
6. 祸不单行-Misfortune never come singly
7. 血浓于水-Blood is thicker than water
8. 披着羊皮的狼-A wolf in sheep
9. 以牙还牙-A tooth for a tooth

(2)Semi-corresponding

The culture of each nation has its own particular characteristics which penetrate into all aspects of the nation. As the essence of the national culture, idioms symbolize a national color. Idioms of semi-corresponding refer to those that partly correspond to each other in meanings, images, structures or usages and they partially convey their cultural features. For example:

1. Like a cat on hot bricks(像热锅上的蚂蚁)
2. Kick somebody when he is down(落井下石)
3. Kick down the ladder(过河拆桥)
4. Gild the lily(画蛇添足)
5. 说曹操曹操到—Talk about evil, and evil comes.
6. 猫哭耗子假慈悲—Shed crocodile tears.
7. 力大如牛—As strong as a horse
8. 大海捞针search for a needle in a haystack

(3)Non-corresponding

Idioms of non-corresponding refer to those that have no similarities in meanings, images, structures, usages or features. The meanings and usage of idioms only convey their own different cultural features. For example:

(1) Wake a sleeping dog（招惹是非）≠唤醒一个沉睡的狗

(2)Penny wise and pound foolish（贪小失大）≠捡了芝麻，丢了西瓜

(3) Make one’s hair stand on end（毛骨悚然）≠怒发冲冠

(4) 亡羊补牢，为迟晚矣≠Mena the fold after a sheep in lost

(5)欲加之罪，何患无辞 ≠Give a dog name and hang it

(6) 差之千里，谬以千里≠A miss is as good as a mile

5. Some specific strategies used in idiom translation

The well-known American translating theorist Eugene A. Nida defines translating in this way: translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message (1969, p.12). And he also has put forward a translating standard, that is, "functional equivalence" or "dynamic equivalence", which includes four aspects; they are respectively lexica l equivalence, syntactic equivalence, textual equivalence and stylistic equivalence. Due to the cultural diversities, it is impossible to achieve absolute equivalency in translation. And aimed at the difficulties of understanding idioms, the strategies of literal translation, liberal translation, literal plus liberal translation can be applied in translating idioms in order to make our versions become more and more faithful and smooth.

5.1 Literal translation

Literal translation is not word for word but the translation of the original thoughts and contents without changing the way of expression. This method best shows the national traits of original works(吕瑞昌等 et al., 1983). In other words, literal translation refers to a full representation of the original when the original is consistent with the target language idiom in terms of the sequence of vocabulary, grammatical structure and rhetorical device. Just as Alexander Tyler, a British translation theorist，well illustrated this：‘‘translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work”，“the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original”，and“the translation should have all the ease of the original composition”(Lefevere，1992：128)．Since literal translation faithfully conveys a vivid image and preserves the original form of Idioms without causing confusion in meaning. Moreover, today, in idiom translation, people tend to find equivalent idioms, equivalent in referential meaning instead of in the images. Thus, we can apply literal translation into the translation of the English and Chinese Idiom.

For example:

1. 趁热打铁—— strike while the iron is hot
2. 易如反掌—— as easy as turning one’s head
3. 井底之蛙—— to be like a frog at the bottom of a well
4. 笑里藏刀—— hide a dragger in a smile
5. 好事不出门，恶事行千里——Good news never goes beyond the gate, while bad news spread far and wide
6. To show one’s card—摊牌
7. Good luck would never come in pairs——福无双至
8. Clench one’s teeth—咬牙切齿
9. Abide by the law and behave oneself—安分守己
10. One boy is boy, two boy half a boy, three boys no boy——个和尚挑水喝，两个和尚抬水喝，三个和尚没水喝
11. She refused several offers of marriage, and then, at the age of forty, found herself left on the shelf. (她拒绝了多次求婚，到了四十岁，发现自己被‘束之高阁’了。)

Different cultures can have such a common proverb, which shows that the cultural accumulation of human society has many basic things in common. Adopting this method of translation will not only keeps the original image, but also improves the interest of reading.

5.2 Liberal translation

Liberal translation, which can be also called free translation, does not adhere strictly to the original order of form or word. When dissimilarities and differences exist between English and Chinese in terms of the sequence of vocabulary, grammatical structure and art device and in the different backgrounds of culture and history, free translation would be employed.

For example:

1. as timid as rabbit 胆小如鼠
2. Two heads are better than one人多智慧大
3. A new broom sweeps clean 新官上任三把火
4. Keep one’s nose clean 明哲保身
5. The teenagers do not invite Bob to their parties because he is a wet blanket. 青年们不邀请他参加他们的聚会，因为他是个扫兴的人
6. 一言既出，驷马难追—A word once let go cannot be recalled.

Translation by this method, which should find and use the inter-cultural the same or similar to the original idioms proverbs or idioms, such ability can make the translation more vivid and accurate.

5.3 Literal plus liberal translation

Combining literal plus liberal translation refers to retain the original pronunciation, which can reflect the stating meaning of the original and achieve similar functionality. On one hand, literal translation will decrease the readability of the version sometimes, leading to the feeling of boring reading as ineffective well as cultural transfer; On the other hand, liberal translation will often change the faithfulness of English idioms. Thus, in order to overcome the trouble, we can employ a combination of literal translation and liberal translation.

For example:

(1)Make hay while the sun shines.趁着晴天晒干草，莫失良机。

(2) Until all is over, ambition never dies.不到黄河心不死。

(3) To lift a rock only to have his own toes squashed.搬起石头砸自己的脚.

(4)serve somebody with the same sauce以其人之道还治其人之身

(5) There are no birds of this year in last year’s nest.时过境迁.

(6)Until all is over, ambition never dies.不到黄河不死心

6. Conclusion

In idiom translation, the procession of cultural connotation is a very complicated problem. Mr Wang zuoliang once said: "the translator is a different word processing, but what he faces is two different cultures. The translator must be a real man of letters. “Translation is a process of two kinds of culture communication. Trend of economic globalization and world integration promotes the fusion of national culture around the world. To sum up, idioms are important part of the language and every people possesses her own unique culture. So idioms of one people differ from those of another, which means translation is not only two languages exchanges, but also one kind of cross-cultural exchange. Having discussed the cultural differences and applied several translation methods, we know that everything that can be expressed in one language also can be translated into another language. Consequently, we can always find out the equivalent one whether between two languages or between two cultures, and then by a proper way, we can do the communications by the way of adjusting the structure. As a result, a good job translator is supposed to not only thoroughly understand the cultural differences and but also to comprehensively apply the methods with flexibility, he or she should also work hard at two languages and cultures concerned and undergo plenty of practice so as to produce more faithful, smooth, and elegant versions.

Works Cited

1. Funk, Wilfred John. Word Origins and Their Romantic Stories. New York:

Bell Publishing Company, 1978.

2. Nida, E. A. amp; Charles, R.T. The theory and practice of translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill,1969

3.Tyler,E．B．Primitive Culture．London：John Murray, 1871

The university of Birmingham﹠Harper Collins Publishers. Collins obuild English dictionary.London: The Author,2000

4.邓萍 《源自《圣经》的英语习语》.厦门大学出版社,2013.

5.胡文仲 《英语习语与英美文化》. 外语教学与研究出版社,2000.

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